Kevin Brown thought he was picking up Renyatta Hamilton for a picnic date.

But instead prosecutors say Brown was ambushed at the Clinton Township apartment by an armed Larry Stewart and minutes later was bleeding from four gunshot wounds and fighting for his life, a battle he would lose.

That was the scenario portrayed Wednesday by assistant Macomb County prosecutor William Cataldo during opening statements for the joint trial for Stewart and Hamilton in front of Judge Peter J. Maceroni in Macomb County Circuit Court in Mount Clemens.

Both defendants face charges of felony murder, conspiracy to commit murder, attempted armed robbery and felony firearm for the Dec. 19 incident at Clemens Court Apartments off Joy Boulevard east of Gratiot just north of Mount Clemens.

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Cataldo said Hamilton lured Brown to the apartment after Brown finished working the midnight shift at a factory. As Brown approached the door, a gun-toting Stewart accosted him in the hallway, Cataldo said.

“No other reason than he was an easy mark, and they wanted easy money,” Cataldo told jurors. “What they didn’t know was that he would fight back. He fought for his life. He wouldn’t give up easily. … As a result, he was shot four times.”

The pair struggled over the gun. Two shots were fired in the hallway, and the fight continued outside of the tri-level apartment building.

Brown wrestled the gun from Stewart and was seen aiming the gun at a fleeing Stewart outside the apartment building, Cataldo said. But the gun didn’t fire due to an empty chamber.

Stewart, who turned 22 two days before, and Hamilton, 21, also were shot, suffering minor wounds.

Hamilton made admissions, and Stewart turned himself in two days later.

Brian May testified Wednesday that the night before at the apartment, Stewart showed off the silver revolver in the second-floor apartment by sticking it in his waistband. Stewart boasted about committing a robbery and asked May to help, May said.

“He was going to rob somebody,” May, 19, said. “He said I just have to go into his pockets. I said, ‘No, I don’t do that.’”

Stewart wrapped the gun in a white T-shirt. Hamilton put it in her purse because she didn’t want her cousin, Justin Lane, 21, to see it. Lane rented the apartment unit where May lived and Hamilton and Stewart sometimes stayed, including the night before the morning incident.

Cataldo said the conspiracy case is backed by text messages and telephone calls between Hamilton and Stewart for several minutes before the attempted robbery as Stewart hid in a stairwell. Hamilton simultaneously was also talking to Brown via call-waiting.

Township Police Officer Larry Emerson described responding to Lane’s 911 call and arriving to see Brown struggling to walk and waving at him on a grassy area in front of the apartment building.

Cataldo showed a photograph of Brown being attended to on the ground. Blood can be seen on his shirt by his chest, and his left pants leg and sock were soaked in blood.

A blood sock print was shown on the sidewalk going from the rear to the front of the building where Brown ran.

Hamilton’s defense attorney, Steven Freers, suggested that Brown accidentally shot himself in the leg because that is what a bystander told Emerson.

The two defense attorneys noted a discrepancy in the five shots fired and six or seven wounds suffered by the three parties. “It’s troubling,” Freers said. “The math doesn’t add up.”

But Cataldo said Hamilton and Stewart were hit by bullets that also hit Brown.

Stewart’s attorney, Mark Haddad, called Cataldo’s opening a “theory.”

“No witnesses say they saw Larry Stewart do armed robbery, murder or was hiding in the stairwell,” he said.

Freers said prosecutor cannot prove his client knew about the robbery.

“She didn’t think it would happen,” he said. “There was no agreement.”

Defense attorneys noted that only Brown’s fingerprints and blood were found on the gun.

Hamilton had dated Stewart and Brown, Cataldo said. Hamilton met Highland Park-resident Brown while she worked at the McDonald’s restaurant at 15 Mile Road and Harper Avenue and Brown worked at a nearby factory.

Stewart and Hamilton are both being held without bond and face life in prison without parole if convicted of felony murder.